The Major Scale: Part 12: String Shifting

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So what's the point of knowing these positions? Well, when we add the idea of “string shifting” you will see that its a way to start using more of the fretboard. Let’s explore how we can approach this and make this doable.

String Shifting

How can we move from one position to the next? What are some things we can do? Well first of all you can just shift using the strings themselves. I call this string shifting. What is string shifting? String shifting is a way to move from one position to the next. Each string can be considered a pathway for you to guide yourself into or out of a different part of the neck/fretboard.

Let’s look at the following example in the key of Bb. In this example we are going to shift from the 5th position to the 6th position using the first string.

Shifting using the 1st string

So as you get to the first string you simply shift your left hand until you are in the next position. Look at how our 4th finger slides up and stays the same but our new fingering appears for the 6th position. As you can see, we then continue to descend into the new postion. We can do this which each string. In the following example we are shifting using the second string.

Shifting on the 2nd string

Instead of using an anchor point like the last example (the 4th finger) we just adjusted our left hand fingering to the new position automatically and continued until we reached the top of the new postion. So, we “entered" the new postion on the 2nd string this time. Again, each string can be considered as a “door way” to the next position.

Further Ideas on String Shifting

Feel free to move back and forth restricting yourself to using one string as that doorway just to see what will happen and get a feel for what is going on. You can do a variation of movements like this. Instead of descending into the new position just descend back into the original position using the same “door way”. Or if you went up into the new postion using the 2nd string use the 3rd string to go back into the orignal position. Mix and match different string pathways and have fun.

This again, shows why learning the 7BP fingerings are important. In order to make these types of movements on the fretboard you have to be familiar with them to begin with. Also, notice that this last example resembles a 3NPS type fingering. Do you see it? If not, no worries. We will explore this more next week.

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Practice Session

We covered the fingering postions for the keys of C and F. Let’s take a look at Bb shall we? Let’s practice.